


Only Forever

by Lasgalendil



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Feels, HYDRA Husbands, Japanese-American Character, M/M, Non-Serum Steve Rogers/Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes | Shrinkyclinks, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Racism, Period-Typical Sexism, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers/Winter Soldier, Time Travel, World War II
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2016-01-31
Packaged: 2018-05-09 18:16:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 9
Words: 9,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5550482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lasgalendil/pseuds/Lasgalendil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Hey, ace, you okay?” That mask, that meant mustard gas, that meant trenches—it had to, right? So maybe this guy was a veteran of the Great War, had some shell shock or something? Burns from H would certainly explain the mask, the goggles, the gloves. Maybe this guy wasn’t all right in the head either, not after the war, not anymore. And Steve Rogers could sympathize with shit lungs and shit luck and not being able to breathe.</p><p>“Hey. Here,” Steve scrounged his pockets, handed over his last quarter without even blinking. “Go get yourself a hot meal or something, okay soldier?“</p><p>...In 2014, Steve Rogers woke with a gasp.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Homecoming

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Only Forever](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/164663) by Bing Crosby. 
  * Inspired by [Turn Back the Clock](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1561445) by [Bluandorange](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluandorange/pseuds/Bluandorange). 



> Do I want to be with you  
> As the years come and go?  
> Only forever  
> If you care to know  
> Would I grant all your wishes  
> And be proud of the task?  
> Only forever  
> If someone should ask  
> How long would it take me  
> To be near if you beckoned?  
> Off hand I would figure  
> Less than a second  
> Do you think I'll remember  
> How you looked when you smile?  
> Only forever  
> That's puttin' it mild
> 
> Only Forever  
> —Bing Crosby, 1940

“I can’t fuckin’ believe it.”  
  
“Hey, Soldier. You come home, honeybunny? Big bad world treat you rough?”  
  
“My name. Is James.”  
  
“Aw, lookkit. It thinks it’s people.”  
  
“Don’t worry, honeybunny. We’ll fix you up.”  
  
_Don’t_  
_Stop_  
  
“Aw, fuck. It’s pissed itself.”  
“Shit happens.”  
  
_Not_  
_Please_  
  
“Did it always twitch like that?”  
“Only at capacity voltage.”  
  
_Steve_  
  
“How the hell is it still alive? Let alone _remembering—?_ ”  
“I am _not_ cleaning that chair.”  
  
_Stevie—_  
  
  
“Aw, don’t cry, honeybunny. You’ll see sweet little Stevie soon enough.”

  
  
.

  
“Cap,” Maria Hill tried again. “Cap. _Steve_. Please. You don’t have to do this.”  
  
Steve Rogers didn’t answer.  
  
“Steve, Steve, please—“  
  
“He’s my friend,” he finally said. “Bucky. He’s my friend.”  
  
Seventy years. Seventy years Cap had slept under the ice, and for seventy years the enemy he’d given his life trying to destroy had tortured James Buchanan Barnes.  
  
Maria knew. She’d been at the debriefing. She’d been there when Fury and Coulson and the World Security Council had decided not to tell Captain America. And she’d been there when the door had come neatly off its hinges, when Cap had stepped into the room with righteous fury in his blue yes and his strong jaw set, strode to the computer, took the drive containing the data, then straightened, said “Every SHIELD Agent in this building was willing to risk their life against HYDRA when I asked them to. Which one of you is going to stop me?” and walked out.  
  
The Red Room file Romanov had acquired only told a fraction of the story. And for the last week Steve Rogers had refused calls, refused visitors, refused food or even sleep, determined to know every single sick thing that HYDRA had ever done to Bucky Barnes.  
  
“He remembered me,” Steve said at last. “Bucky—he—they—“  
  
Deep breath. Small sob. Then that familiar voice was steady—alarmingly so. “I’m going to find him, Hill. I’m going to make this right.”  
  
“Revenge won’t help you, Steve.”  
  
“I didn’t say anything about revenge,” he stood, silhouetted by the screen. “That’s not what I stand for, not why I became a soldier. I want Bucky back. I want to know he’s safe. And I want _justice_.”  


  
.

  
Steve Rogers woke alone and cold in a drafty Brooklyn apartment. He woke coughing. That, at least, wasn’t unusual. But there was no one there to hand him his epinephrine, no warm body in the bed next to him making the chill air bearable. Bucky was away, shipped out to Ford McCoy somewhere in Wisconsin. So far away, so untouchable it might as well have been the Western Front.  
  
Steve didn’t want to think about it. Six weeks. Six weeks of basic then Bucky would be gone.  
  
Gone for good. James Buchanan Barnes was a tough son of a bitch (sorry, ma), but even Steve’s eternal optimism couldn’t see his friend getting through the mill of bullets and blood that was the trenches of Europe. Back when Pearl Harbor first happened, when the Japs had first brought the fight to them, well. They’d both been all-American heroes and righteous indignation, had decided to enlist right then…but weeks of training in Goldie’s Boxing Gym and the final evaluation, his 4F to Bucky’s 1A, and the patriotic fervor had died. Steve wanted to do the right thing. Wanted to enlist, serve his country, stop the bully that was Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party that was tearing a hole in the fabric of the world. And Bucky? Bucky was brave. Bucky was no coward, despite what people said. Bucky stayed behind to be with him. “Someone’s gotta look after you, punk.” Said saving Steve’s ass was a soldier’s job in and of itself, said FDR owed him a goddamned medal. Worked the dockyards, now more busy than ever, said the shipping industry was vital to the war effort, said what he was doing wasn’t just ‘woman’s work’ even if all the other boys had moved on to the Atlantic or Pacific, said Bucky Barnes was as proud to hold a rivet gun as a rifle.  
  
A rivet gun. Steve would give anything to be able to serve his country even in that. Better a rivet gun than a paintbrush. Better anything than a sick bed. He painted when he could, when the cold New York winters and hot, muggy summers let him, churning out posters for the war effort, hoping to get a design in to the OWI instead of the fashion spreads, even if those actually paid. He helped in a local print shop, too, with inks and washes. Wasn’t it nice, Bucky had asked him when this had all began, to go to work everyday surrounded by beautiful women and be the only guy…  
  
Not that it had helped Steve any. Not that Bucky ever needed help. Now where women were concerned.  
  
 It’d been a shock, really, when the draft greetings had finally come.  
  
So Bucky was gone. And Steve woke up gasping more often than not, with shaky hands and reedy breath trying to get his epinephrine ready. Injections and nebulizers. That was all that kept him alive now that Bucky was gone. He was certain—felt Bucky had been certain at the train station, hiding behind a bag of oranges, chocolates, frozen smile, a final salute and chipper “See you soon, Stevie!”—the first real chill of winter this year would kill him.  
  
Steve slept when he could. Ate when he could. Painted when he could. And, even when he couldn’t, he wrote a letter to Bucky every single damned day. It might be a week or so before he managed to totter downstairs to post them, but he wrote every damned day. The weeks wore on. He got no responses. Bucky’d told him not to expect one. A soldier could get letters, but good fuckin’ luck writing back.  
  
But maybe. Maybe today there’d be a letter from Bucky. Steve forced himself to sit, to take the medicine, to hear Bucky’s absent voice saying _breathe slower, slower, Stevie, nice and deep_. The wheezing lessened over the next half hour, but didn’t abate.  
  
He got up. Washed. Ate. Steve Rogers dressed morosely, added a dab of Bucky’s brylcreem to his lank blond hair.  
  
He checked the post. Empty, like their house, their bed. Another day in Brooklyn. Without Bucky. The year was 1942.


	2. Small Acts of Heroism

“It’s absurd! This target is what led to the disaster at the Triskelion in the first place—“  
  
“Gentlemen, we’re not sending it after Captain America, we’re sending it after _Steve Rogers_.”  
  
“If we can get messages back, we can send someone else. You’re obsessed with this, this _crusade_ , this goddamned _poetic justice_ , making the Soldier be the one to do it.  It’s fucking madness, it’s fucking _irresponsible_ to send the Winter Soldier!”  
  
“Brock’s got a point. It’s the Asset’s pre-Identity timeline, won’t there be triggers?”  
  
“Your dissent has been noted, Gentlemen, and overruled. Prep it for Transit.”  
  
“Where do we tell it its going?”  
  
“Home.”

 

.

  
  
“Bad news, Cap,” Wilson began.  
  
Steve Rogers grimaced. He looked old, old and worn. “Figured as much.”  
  
“He’s left the states, Cap. If Wilson’s info is correct,” Maria continued. “Eastern Europe.”

  
“What aren’t you telling me?”  
  
A shared look. Wilson nodded. “HYDRA. He’s—“  
  
“They have him,” Steve sank into the chair, suddenly small. “After all this, they have him.”  
  
“No, Cap,” Wilson said, put a hand out, laid on his left knee. “We think he’s going after them.”  
  
“Here’s some images, sat photos of former HYDRA munitions bases in Romania. Bulgaria. The Ukraine—well, Russia, now,” she corrected. “But Steve, there’s more.”  
  
Steve raised his face out of his hands, skin ashen grey. “More?”  
  
“On scene visuals by the recovery team. It’s—it’s not pretty, Steve.”  
  
“I have to see.”  
  
Wordlessly, she passed the screen. For the first time since the Winter Soldier’s identity had been established, Steve looked away. It was, she supposed, the difference between understanding the torment Barnes had suffered, and an abrupt confrontation with the violence he was capable of.  
  
“Still sound like the kind you save, Cap?” Sam asked.  
  
“Always,” Steve whispered, fingers pressing the bridge of his nose. “ _Always_.”

 

.  
  


  
“What the fuck?” May his ma forgive him, may God have mercy on his soul, but those were the exact words out of his mouth. Maybe Executive Order 9066 made sense, maybe it didn’t, how was he to know, he was an artist, not a strategist,  he certainly didn’t live out in California and he trusted the government to do what was good and what necessary.…even if it stuck in his craw.  But good was good and right was right anywhere, Steve insisted stubbornly. And the camps, well, they weren’t too bad, were they? Not on the newsreels and such. But if good was good and right was right, it had to be the same with bad, he reasoned. So war or no, Pearl Harbor or no, camps or no camps, there just wasn’t any good reason to go beating up some poor girl, even if she was a Jap.  
  
  
“Hey, tough guy,” Steve stuck his nose in where it _most definitely belonged_ , so shut up Buck. “Go pick on someone your own size.”  
  
That elicited some laughter. Sometimes, Steve remembered, sometimes just being confronted with your own cruelty was enough to make someone stop. It’s how he’d met Bucky, and Steve remembered. He’d always— _always_ —given a bully the chance to either pull the punch or land the first blow. Back in the day it’d made his tormenter stop and reconsider, led to the fastest friendship he’d ever had. Nowadays, it just gave Bucky Barnes ulcers.  
  
“You okay, ma’am?” Steve bent to pick up her packages, now torn and scattered.  
  
“‘m fine,” she stammered, wiping long strands of hair, snot, and hot tears from her face. “Please—“

  
“You a little Jap lover?” someone heckled. “You fucking traitor.”  
  
“You fucking fairy.”  
  
Steve only sighed. There was only one James Buchanan Barnes, and if his friend had ever had the potential to become a bully like these…well. They didn’t have an ounce of Bucky’s heart in them. Not a one of them. Steve offered a small hand to help the girl up. She couldn’t be more than what, thirteen? And these guys—Christ (sorry, ma), these kids—well. They couldn’t be any older. Not right hitting some poor Jap girl. Not really right hitting some dumb kids, either.  
  
_You gettin’ a degree in art, or stupid?_ he heard Bucky’s voice. _Some days Stevie I swear it’s both_. Well fuck him. Bucky wasn’t here right now. Steve Rogers wasn’t about to punch some damned kids, not unless they really deserved it. They’d been a few years older? Ha. He’d lick ‘em. Well, he’d _try_. Bucky would be the one to lick ‘em. Bucky Barnes’ right hook was an unstoppable force of nature as far as Steve was concerned.  
  
“You’re all a bunch of tough guys, huh?” Steve leered instead. “Picking on some poor girl? You want to fight some Japs? Go join the Army.”  
  
“Why don’t you join the army? Fairy.”  
  
“Yeah, fairy.”  
  
“I’m 4F. What’s your excuse?” Truth was, Steven Grant Rogers, asthmatic extraordinaire, couldn’t get drafted even if he paid to (he’d know. He’d tried.).  
  
“Don’t you go talkin’ to my boy like that, _Mick_.”  
  
“It’s a free country. I’ll talk how I like, pal,” Steve bristled at the slur. “You should probably go now, Ma’am.” And she—whoever she was—didn’t need any more prompting.  
  
Five on one. Steve didn’t like his odds. But if Bucky had taught him anything over the years, it was that bullies were cowards. You just had to take the biggest, meanest of ‘em and surprise him, and the others would run like hell.  
  
…Theoretically.  
  
Just once, Steve reckoned, readjusting his bloodied nose with broken fingers, just once in twenty-three years it’d be nice if a girl stuck around long enough to give him her name, let alone a kiss. _Face it, Rogers,_ he thought bitterly. _You can do the right thing all damned day but in the end, you’re no hero._  
  
And now there was no Bucky Barnes here to argue.

 

.  
  


  
Buck,  
  
I got in a fight today. Might’ve broken my nose. Wish you’d been here, but I got ‘em on the ropes. They’re going to take that medal away from you, punk.  
  
Hurry home  
—Stevie


	3. Man Out of Time

  
“I don’t like it.”  
  
“Winter can take care of himself.”  
  
“I’m not worried about the fucking _Asset,_ Rollins. I mean, have we thought out the repercussions of this? It’s Captain fucking America. I mean, Pierce always used to brag about shaping the century, but this is _the entirety of the 20th century_ we’re talking about. What happens if he succeeds—?”  
  
“HYDRA wins the war.”  
  
“Yeah. And if Hitler—?”  
  
“Schmidt wouldn’t let him.”  
  
“But what about _us?_ What if—“  
  
“Aw, fuck, Brock. You getting soppy on me? You and I, we’ll be fine, baby. Just you wait. The two of us? We’re gonna live forever.”

 

.

  
When Romanov and Barton went into the field in deep cover, then went black.  Comms dark. When and if they emerged for debriefings was sporadic and unpredictable. The moment Barton made contact via sat phone, Steve Rogers sprang to like a new recruit at 6 am bugle call.  
  
“Captain Rogers?” JARVIS woke the Captain to abrupt attention.  
  
“Rogers here. Clint?”  
  
“Hey, Cap. You look like shit.”  
  
“I could say the same about you, pal.”  
  
Clint only laughed.  
  
“You back stateside?”  
  
He shook his head. “Budapest. Trail’s gone cold. Nat’s still trying to get in touch with a few Red Room contacts.”  
  
“Hey there, sunshine,” a sultry voice but snicker in her smile. Nat.  
  
“Any word on Bucky?”  
  
“I owe Sasha,” Nat said. “Don’t worry, Cap. We’ll find your boy. We’ll bring him home.”  
  
“I got nothing better to do,” Clint shrugged, worn face giving him away. “But Uncle Steve and Uncle Tony had better be spoiling the shit out of Cooper, Lila, and little Nattie.”  
  
Half a world away, Steve Rogers attempted a smile that was painful in its sincerity. “Roger that.”

  
“But uh, no spoiling the shit out of Laura, okay? That’s my job.”  
  
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”  
  
“Of course not, you big dummy. I was talking about Uncle Tony. Guy’s got a _reputation_ , Cap. A reputation and a _fortune_. Keep him away from my wife, will you?”  
  
“Will do.”  
  
“Dosvedanya,” Nat only grinned. “Widow out.”

 

.  
  


Steve Rogers might be skinny, asthmatic, and near-sighted, but he wasn’t _stupid_ , thank you very much. He could tell when he was being followed. Years of bullies sneaking up on someone could make a man observant, if not paranoid…and after purposefully backtracking to the post office by the worst route possible, he knew he wasn’t being paranoid. No way his tail had legitimate business at all of the places Steve had stopped. And this guy—this guy was _big._ Nasty. Mean looking. Steve had sketched the leopards at the Central Park Zoo once with Buck, a lazy afternoon some idle summer with packed sandwiches and beers hidden in brown paper. Watched them move, pace their constraints with such sleek grace and raw power in their muscular frames. This guy, whoever the hell he was, walked just like one of them.  
  
And God, but he was one scary creep. That predatory strut. Those goggles over his eyes. Wore what? A gas mask on his face like some sort of freak?  
  
But Steve Rogers was Steve Rogers. Bucky at basic be damned, he’d never run from a fight. So Steve squared his shoulders, lifted his already bloodied chin up, turned around, crossed the crowded Brooklyn street and walked right into him.  
  
“You got a problem with me, buddy?”  
  
But the guy just stood there. Steve couldn’t see his eyes, but he could swear he was boring holes right through him.    
  
“We gonna have to take this someplace, punk?”  
  
There was a sound. Half-sob, half-grunt. The guy just stood there, head-cocked, watching him.  
  
Sudden compassion struck him. Steve put his fists down.  
  
“Hey, ace you okay?” That mask, that meant _mustard gas_ , that meant trenches—it had to, right? So maybe this guy was a veteran of the Great War, had some shell shock or something? Burns from H would certainly explain the mask, the goggles, the gloves. Maybe this guy wasn’t all right in the head either, not after the war, not anymore. And Steve Rogers could sympathize with shit lungs and shit luck and not being able to breathe.  
  
“Hey. Here,” Steve scrounged his pockets, handed over his last quarter without even blinking. “Go get yourself a hot meal or something, okay soldier?“

 

.

  
In 2014, Steve Rogers woke with a gasp.


	4. A Hero's Welcome

“Alright, I get that, but—in actual English that a human being could fucking understand—how do we bring it back?”  
  
“We don’t.”  
  
“We _don’t—_?”  
  
“The fuck do you mean, ‘we don’t’?”  
  
“Don’t look so offended, Gentlemen. The Asset is right where it’s meant to be.”  
  
“The Asset, you fucking idiot, needs near-constant _maintenance._ You want to release it in the 20th century, have it kill Barnes’ best friend, and leave it without Handlers?”  
  
“Yeah. We know Winter better than anyone. You’ve seen what he’s done— you fucking suicidal? You let him loose in the 20th century without proper upkeep and he could revert to pre-Identity, single-handedly take out all of HYDRA _as it happens_.”  
  
“I assure you, the Asset will be taken care of.”  
  
“As in you’re giving it handlers? Or having outlived its usefulness, you’re going to terminate it?”  
  
“Or, like, since the serum isn’t ever given to Rogers, it’s not technically developed, so how would Zola ever give it to Barnes—? But wait, Erskine had already developed it, given it to Schmidt, so…”  
  
“Try not to think about it, Rollins, if it hurts that much.”  
  
“Shut up, Brock.”  
  
“That, gentlemen, is classified.”  
  
“Fuck you. The Asset is HYDRA’s greatest achievement!”  
  
“Wait, you’re going to terminate Winter? Aw, come on! I didn’t sign up for babysitting duty to have this turn all Old Yeller on me.”  
  
“The Winter Soldier was created as as foil for Captain America, a deterrent. Without Steve Rogers in the picture, the Asset becomes a liability. You can’t have mutually assured destruction without shared resources, Agents Rumlow, Rollins. HYDRA is not irresponsive to the world’s needs.”  
  
“Fuck you.”  
  
“Yeah, man. That’s some serious grade-A bullshit.”

 

.

  
“Captain Rogers—?” Jane Foster yawned/gaped, hair still mussed, pulling the covers up over her bare shoulders.  
  
“Hey, Foster,” the Captain’s voice was tinny through the video call. “Sorry to bother you.”  
  
“Steven!” Thor climbed up from his perch under the covers. Jane elbowed him, shot him a glare. Way to completely show they were still in bed together…  
  
“Uh, hey, Thor…” the flicker in Steve’s eyes between the two of them gave him away. He knew.  
  
“Fuck,” Jane hissed. “Sorry, Captain Rogers. I just thought—JARVIS said—I mean it must’ve been important—so—“  
  
“Oh. Oh!” Captain America flushed, one arm scratching behind his head. “Um…no. I can, um, I can call back later—“  
  
“Please,” Jane whimpered.  
  
“Right. Um. Rogers over and out.”  
  
She let out a groan. Fell back against the pillows. “Jane?” Thor rolled to kiss her. She shoved him away, pulled the covers up over her face. “My love?”  
  
“ _Captain America knows I have sex!_ ” she wailed. “ _I feel so dirty!_ ”

 

.

  
He’d overdone it. If Bucky were here, he’d be absolutely furious. Buck would help him, sure, but there’d be plenty of _you goddamned asshole you stupid jerk worrying me sick_ mixed in with his usual _breathe, Stevie, c’mon Steve breathe_. Steve Rogers was kneeling in an alleyway, wheezing, face purple, trying to light his goddamned Potter’s asthma cigarettes. But his hands were shaking too much, and he just couldn’t get a match to light.  
  
_So is this—it?_ Steve wondered as black spots appeared in his vision. _Is this how it ends?_  
  
Footsteps. And he thought, _thank god, Bucky—_  
  
“Hello?” a familiar face. “You need—help?”  
  
Steve nodded, breath a reedy whine.  
  
“Like this?” Then she brought the lit cigarette to his lips, held it there for him as he inhaled best he could.  
  
“Thanks,” Steve croaked. It was the girl from this morning. What, he wondered, were the odds? No, really. Steve Rogers was a praying man, but this was practically a miracle.  
  
“I’m Alice,” the girl ducked her head and blushed a few minutes later, when Steve’s breathing was better and he could hold both his head up and a cigarette at the same time. “Arisu. But Alice. I like Alice.”  
  
“Okay,” Steve said. “Thanks, Alice.”  
  
“You have asthma. You should come in! I have lavender. It'll help you breathe.”  
  
“I dunno—“ Steve began. “Your parents home?”  
  
Alice laughed. Grabbed his hand and yanked him to his feet. “Come on!” She didn’t live far, less than half a block, but Steve was still winded and wheezing after being dragged up the front steps.  
  
“Hey, hey, ma! Kachan! Look who I found!”  
  
“And who is this?”  
  
“This is—this is _the boy!_ ”  
  
“ _That’s_ the boy?”  
  
“Yes, _the boy!_ ”  
  
A frown. “I thought he’d be—“  
  
“Taller?” Steve asked, scratching behind his head and squinting on some stranger’s doorstep, all while smoking one of his asthma cigarettes.   
  
“Japanese.” The woman gave him a meaningful look.  
  
“Here,” Alice returned with the dried lavender, wrapped hastily in cheesecloth. “To help you breathe!”  
  
“Thank you,” the mother said stiffly. Her English was just as good as her daughter’s. Steve couldn’t detect even a trace of an accent. “For helping Alice.”  
  
“No need to thank me, ma’am,” Steve said. “It was the right thing to do. My pleasure.” And he realized how stupid that sounded coming from him, some scrawny Catlick with his Brooklyn accent, cigarette, busted lip and broken nose. But it was true, and Steve was unashamed.  
  
And that was the story how Steve Rogers shared the world’s most delightfully awkward cup of tea with Alice Mori and her mother in a cramped, cozy kitchen that smelled of spices he’d never heard of, with jars labelled in a language he didn’t understand. Mostly her mother. Alice mainly stared, cheeks flushed and eyes dreamy. But Alice was a budding artist, so Steve got treated to several small sketchpads worth of pen and ink drawings, fantastic, whimsical watercolors, even a few impressive typewriter portraits, and promised to put a good word in for her portfolio someday if she ever applied to art school.  
  
“Bye, Steve Rogers!” Alice told him. The kid continued to wave first from her doorstep, then—much to Steve’s eternal embarrassment—her bedroom window, even blowing a stolen kiss in his direction.  
  
Alright, so for the first time since Bucky’s greeting had come, Steve was _glad_ his best friend was nowhere near the state of New York. If Bucky Barnes had ever seen that, he’d never stop giving him hell.  Funny kid, he shook his head. But all in all, not a bad way to spend an afternoon. Even if they had been strangers. Even if they had been—  
  
A foot. Steve went sprawling into the refuse at the alley’s floor.  
  
He spit. Turned his head. Tried to stand, but a heavy boot rested on his back, sent him back into the mud and held him there.  
  
“Hey, _Mick_.”


	5. Dream of the Past

“Goddamnit, Brock. What are we gonna do?”  
  
“Do? Rollins, you idiot. It’s the Asset. It’s not a _puppy_.”  
  
“But it’s _Winter_ —“  
  
“Don’t call it that.”  
  
“C’mon, Brock. You can’t be okay with this. I mean, we’ve known Winter for years.”  
  
“I said DON’T, Rollins.”  
  
“Like, the mind wipes and stuff I get. It’s like…it’s like TLC for him, the little shit. All the beatings and stuff. He _needs_ it in order to function, to be the best there is. It’s just his programming. And I could go along with it, even, even the rapes, you know? Even with Pierce…even those last couple years when it got gruesome. It was _what Winter needed_. And it was our job to take care of him. Tough love, you know? But…but _Termination—_? Fuck, Brock. It’s _Winter_. How can you be okay with this?”  
  
“Who said I’m okay with this? I’m fucking pissed off about this. I didn’t spend a good twelve years of my life becoming the best in the business for some nobody to come along and pull it all out from under me.”  
  
“You really mean it, Brock-babe? You’ll help me save Winter?”  
  
“For fuck’s sakes, Jack! I’m saving _HYDRA_. I’m saving the _world_. If saving the Asset’s sorry ass happens to meet that objective, then yes. And don’t call it that. Don’t call ME that.”  
  
“Why you got to be like that?”  
  
“The Asset is a weapon. Not a person. Not a _toy_.”  
  
“You know I hate calling him ‘The Asset.’ Like, is Asset his first name, or is it ‘Asset, The Asset’, like Bond?  Winter is just so much easier, man.”  
  
“Jack?”  
  
“Yeah, Brock?”  
  
“You are the literal worst.”

 

.

 

  
“Mr. Wilson?”  
  
“Five more minutes…” Sam rolled over, brought his pillow over his head. “Just five more minu…”  
  
“Mr. Wilson? It’s JARVIS, sir. I was told to contact you regarding any concerning behavior from Captain Rogers?”  
  
“Fuck,” Sam sat up, groggy as all hell. “Yeah. Captain America. Steve. I’m up.”  
  
“Coffee is prepared, sir.”  
  
“You’re the fucking best, JARVIS. Where’s Steve?”  Sam Wilson found him in the gym. It was 3 am.  
  
“Hey, Cap,” he sauntered over, as if casually encountering him at this hour.  
  
“You can drop the act, Sam,” Cap said, delivering another set of rapid fire blows to the bulging seams of the swaying bag. “I know JARVIS called you.”  
  
“You know, _you_ could call me,” Sam took a sip of coffee with a meaningful glance. “Instead of relying on a robot to wake my sorry ass. Seriously, Steve. If I have to have my sorry ass dragged from bed, I’d much rather it be my friend than Stark’s sentient roomba.”  
  
“My maintenance functions can be interchanged with traditional domestic staff on your request,” JARVIS’ mild voice intoned.  
  
“Goddamnit, it was a joke. Please don’t take the air out of my apartment and suffocate me in my sleep.”  
  
“I wouldn’t dream of it, sir. However, Mr. Stark has programmed me to allow for switching to decaffeinated coffee without prior notice.”  
  
Even Steve got a laugh out of that. “That’s cruel, JARVIS,” Sam whined. “I thought we were friends.”  
  
He let Steve get in another round. Handed him a water bottle, handed him his towel. Took a deep breath. “Okay, man. What’s up?”  
  
“I had a dream,” Steve frowned, sitting next to him. Sam could feel the warmth rising from his super-soldier serum infused muscles. Damn, did that metabolism generate heat.  
  
“Nightmare?”  
  
Steve sighed. Looked down at the floor. His voice was small. Shoulders hunched. “No.”  
  
“What happened? Was it—Bucky?”  
  
“I saw him, Sam,” Steve continued to stare off into space, into time, into that place in his head he went whenever he was reliving those days so long ago. “I saw Bucky. Only it wasn’t _Bucky_. It was the Winter Soldier,” he frowned. “In 1942.”

 

.

 

“Fuckin’ green nigger.”  
  
“Do I even _know_ you?” Steve spat once he’d been allowed to sit up. There were six of them, Steve couldn’t help but notice with a groan. And they were all, to a man, at least as big as Buck.  
  
“Yeah, Mick. My kid brother tells me some scrawny-ass Paddy gave him a busted lip this morning. You know anything about that?”  
  
Oh, hell. As in the road thereto was paved with Steve's good intentions. “Sorry about your brother,” Steve said, brushing the muck off his face and standing shakily. “But he and his friends were picking on some girl. Somebody had to step in, and things got out of hand. But I sure as hell didn’t throw the first punch. I don’t make a habit out of hitting kids.”  
  
“Some girl? That little Jap bitch?”  
  
The air in his lungs went—if anything—colder. “You watch you language,” Steve bristled. “When you talk about Alice Mori.”  
  
Crude laughter. Cracking knuckles. “Or what, Mick?”  
  
“Or I’ll teach you and your pals here a lesson about showing respect to dames.”  
  
“Why, Mick? You giving it to her? She the only piece of ass a potato nigger like you can get?” that sick smile changed. Leered. “Can _afford_ -?”  
  
Steve charged. He had a thing about fighting fairly, Bucky always said it’d get him killed, but Steve only fought fairly when it was the Right Thing To Do. And when some guy accused the thirteen year-old girl who helped you with your asthma cigarettes and probably saved your life a few hours ago of being a whore? Well. Jap be damned, outnumbered be damned, death wish be damned, abandoning pretense, throwing caution to the winds and straight up punching the guy in the dick became The Right Thing To Do. So Steve did.  
  
He landed the punch. And he knew—just knew—as the guy crumpled to the ground with a soft groan and his cronies closed in and an actual honest-to-God knife came out that Right Thing To Do or not, deep down inside, Steven Grant Rogers was really, really going to regret this.  
  
If he lived through it, Bucky Barnes was most definitely going to kill him.


	6. Catch Me When I Fall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for violence and sexual assault.

“So, um. I guess the real question is…know anything about time travel?”  
  
“I saw Looper.”  
  
“Yeah, Brock-babe, and I love Classic Who but I don’t think that counts.”  
  
“We’re going to need _scientists_ , dumbass. And don’t call me that.”  
  
“So…the Nutty Professor it is, then?”  
  
“He seems the best bet.”  
  
“How the fuck we gonna find him, Brock-babe?”  
  
“…have you even _seen_ this Lewis chick’s instagram?”

 

.

  
**03:33 am**  
**from dlewdiddlydoo@gmail.com**  
HOW’S THE THUNDER DOWN UNDER

INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW  
  
4 SCIENCE  
  
**03:35 am**  
SRSLY 4 SCIENCE  
  
**03:39 am**  
JAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNEE  
  
  
**03:42 am**  
GOT A LITTLE ASGARDIAN IN YOU?  
  
**03:43 am**  
GOT A LOT OF ASGARDIAN IN YOU?

 

Seven texts in ten minutes. It was too much for even a mild-mannered astrophysicist like Jane Foster. “For the love of Nikola Tesla, Darcy, I have a sex god of a boyfriend who remembers to visit me once every few years and limited vacation time so would you just kindly _not_ —?” she sob-snarled into the phone.  
  
“Wow. Clearly someone’s not getting any,” Darcy Lewis' mellow voice chirped. “It’s Selvig. For science!”  
  
“Our friends Darcy and Eric!” Thor boomed to the video call, as though happy to hear from them from their love nest. “Come, friends! How are you!”  
  
Jane sighed.  
  
“We’re great, Thor,” Darcy said, staring pointedly at his exposed abs. “ _Reeeeeal_ great. Everything is _great_.”  
  
“You’re not returning my calls,” Eric Selvig’s perpetually perplexed dad-voice/face said.  
  
“Eric, you left me fifteen voice messages and thirty texts over the past week," Jane said. "My email inbox is _full_. None of this is urgent. And I’m. On. Vacation.”  
  
“Yeah. Riding bareback on an Asgardian stud—“  
  
“Yes, yes I understand, Jane, dear, that’s all very nice but the chronoscope has picked up a critical space-time anomaly—“

  
  
**INCOMING CALL**  
**Cpt. Rogers, Steven Grant**

  
“Wait, is that a call? Who’s calling you at 4 am?” Darcy piped. “I mean, I’m here, Eric’s here, Thor’s already there, your mom’s asleep upstairs—“  
  
“Hey, Dr. Foster. It’s Steve, Steve Rogers again. Look, I hate to interrupt—“  
  
“Wait? Captain Rogers? Captain America Steve Rogers?” Darcy’s honeyed tones turned suffocatingly sweet. Jane had the terrible, sinking feeling she knew _exactly_ where this was going.  
  
“—the chronal displacement inertia footprint alone is the highest recorded in history—“  
  
“But I was wondering—it’ll probably sound crazy—back in my day the answer was no, but you seem to be the resident expert on these sorts of things—“  
  
“YOU’RE HAVING A THREE WAY WITH CAPTAIN STEVEN GRANT ALL AMERICAN DAT STAR SPANGLED ASS ROGERS AND YOU DIDN’T TELL ME?”  
  
“—we could be, theoretically, in a divergent timeline! Jane, dear, it’s quite possible we’ve all been subjected to chronological-dimensional shift without even realizing it—“ Eric “Totally Never Lost His Shit And Got Committed For It” Selvig sang excitedly.  
  
“—but I was wondering what your thoughts were on time travel?”  
  
“Not _now_ , Captain,” Jane Foster whimpered into her hands.  
  
“Oh, okay! No, uh, no problem! Uh…call me sometime. When things are…uh, um. Bye.”

  
  
  
**03:55 am**  
from Cpt. Rogers, Steven Grant  
I AM SO SORRY

  
  
**03:56 am**  
to boothbyi07@uniofoxford.edu  
Flowers. Paris. Disney. Vibrators. Porn. Kama Sutra. Clinical sexologist. Prostitutes.

I don’t care what you need I don’t care what it costs just tell me so she can get laid and leave me alone  
  
                                

 

 

from boothbyi07@uniofoxford.edu  
                                Dr. Foster?

 

  
to boothbyi07@uniofoxford.edu  
I’M SERIOUS IAN

                               

 from boothbyi07@uniofoxford.edu

 I’m not really comfortable discussing

 

to boothbyi07@uniofoxford.edu  
Nettersanatomyfemreprod.jpg

 

  
from boothbyi07@uniofoxford.edu  
                                DR FOSTER????

 

  
from boothbyi07@uniofoxford.edu  
Anatomically correct visual of human female genitalia. CLITORIS. GO.

GO NOW IAN

 

  
  
**04:01 am**  
from dlewdiddlydoo@gmail.com  
HEY, HEY JANE  
IS YOUR ASS THOR?

 

  
**04:02 am**

to dlewdiddlydoo@gmail.com  
yours is going to be

  
.  
  


  
Steve Rogers was in for the beating of his life. And the worst part? The worst part was he was smart enough to know it.  
  
The first punch was from a guy with shoulders like a haunch of pork, fists like a ham. Sent Steve flying down the alleyway, landing sprawled on his back. He tried to to grab the brick of a building wall, the smooth wood of a fence to bring himself standing but the world was spinning and his jaw was throbbing and he thought he was going to be sick.  
  
Then he was sick.  
  
And there was laughter and jeering and taunts and a boot on his back and he was on his face, smothered into a pool of his own vomit, still smelled like plain oatmeal and butter, like sencha tea at Alice Mori’s house, and he realized he hadn’t eaten since early that morning no wonder he felt sick and weak and dizzy Bucky would be furious—  
  
Someone picked him up by his shirt collar. Fist to his face. Steve tried to bring his arms up but his arms felt like lead flopped down to his sides hung there like fish and that was funny—it was funny, wasn’t it?—and suddenly he was laughing, laughing about fish arms and smelling like vomit and tea at Alice Mori’s house.  
  
He is dropped. The ground is wet. The ground is spinning. He’s spinning around the sun, round and round, smelling like oatmeal and butter and pigshit and tea at Alice Mori’s house.  
  
“The fuck is wrong with him?”  
“Fuck, man,  I think he’s _hurt_ , he’s hurt _real bad_ —“  
“Goddamn fairy, you like that?”  
  
Then a boot stamped down on his hand his hand his right hand _no, no_ he pleads please _no not that hand you can take the other one I need that hand I paint with that hand I can’t work take anything take everything just not, not that hand—_  
  
“Fucking fairy. Fuckin’ homosexual. That why the army won’t take you?”  
“You a fuckin’ invert, Mike? A fuckin’ fag?”  
  
And there’s a knife in his ribs a knife against his wrist pressing down against those tendons a thin line of blood and Stevie is screaming thrashing but they’re holding him down because you like this, you like this you sick little fag you little Jap-fucker and _no, no, not his hand not his hand anything but his hand and Buckybuckybuckyhelpme—!_  
  
“Who the hell is Bucky?”  
“Bucky your boyfriend, queenie?”  
“You lie real still I can be Bucky for you, fag—“  
  
There are five of them and one laying in the dirt clutching his balls and there is only one of him and there is a knife against his belt his groin and no Bucky because Bucky Barnes is off in the army Bucky is in Wisconsin Bucky is in Europe Bucky is falling, falling from a train—  
  
Then suddenly it’s okay, everything’s okay, because Bucky is here, _he’s right here_ and Steve understands he’s been hyperventilating he’s not breathing he’s probably dying and that’s okay because Bucky—  
  
There is one of him and one of Bucky and Bucky has a knife and there are six of them laying in the dirt broken and bleeding and are they dead? is this the war? there are bodies—shit, those are bodies _those are definitely fucking bodies_ is that blood? there’s blood—yeah that’s blood _that’s definitely fucking blood_ and it’s _everywhere_ and it’s okay it’s all okay because Bucky is here, _he’s right here_ and Stevie’s being carried away in strong arms held tight against his chest and it’s Bucky Bucky his Bucky only not because it’s the strange soldier in the mask…  
  
Then Stevie is asleep. Maybe he will sleep for a long, long time. 


	7. Chapter 7

“So.”

  
“Yeah.”

  
“So Selvig can really down it.”

  
“Just shut up and help me carry him.”

  
“See, Brocke-babe? This is why we need Winter. I bet Winter could sling him over one shoulder without breaking a sweat.”

  
“You fucking the Asset or fucking me?”

  
“You. Obviously. I mean, I’ve—we’ve—everybody’s sort of fucked Winter. If you think about it. Which I try not to. Obviously. So technically, yes.  But not like—that.”

  
“Just shut up and give me a hand, Rollins.”

  
“Jesus, fuck, Selvig! That’s disgusting!”

  
“You’re cleaning it up.”

  
“Aw, c’mon Brock-babe! I cleaned up the damned chair!”

  
“You know, you’re right. This is why we need the fucking Winter Soldier. Winter doesn’t chap my ass every time he has to get his hands dirty.”

  
“See? I knew I’d get you to call him that.”

  
“Go to hell, Rollins.”

 

.

Internet. Very helpful.  
  
He had no idea just how helpful. Steve had learned a lot in his few years awake in the 21st century, and foremost among them was if in doubt, ask the internet. Google never laughed at him for not understanding a reference or a sexual innuendo. In fact, Google quite politely explained concepts to him in depth without any judgment or repercussions—although JARVIS did remind him to ‘delete his browser history’ on some occasions, whatever that meant. And, as much as Sam Wilson tried to ease their conversations towards the topic, the internet was also where Steve discovered he was, in fact, most likely bisexual. Possibly demisexual? Or perhaps a biromantic asexual who could sometimes enjoy sex but not really miss its absence? He was still overwhelmed with it all, grateful for the words but still quite confused as to “how he identified”. Peggy-and-Bucky sexual, for sure.  
  
_Alice Mori_  
  
Okay. So there were a lot of Alice Mori’s. But judging by their pictures this wasn’t the woman he was looking for. All of them were far too young. And—maybe he should try images? He’d try images—  
  
Well. Some of those looked distinctly…pornographic. Steve hit the back button more times than he could count. _Okay, okay, Steve, you’re Captain America you’re a soldier you’re a superhero you’ve got this, pal._  
  
_Steve Rogers Alice Mori_  
  
This led him to an odd sharing site called ‘Tumblr’, and a disturbing amount of artwork and  photographs (he nearly died right then and there, wondered how anyone had such an intimate picture, then remembered in this modern, digital age, they could be ‘retouched’—although the site called them ‘manips’) of him as a young man, before the War, before Eskine, even. Apparently America wasn’t willing to stop worshipping him for his body alone—although how and why skinny Stevie Rogers could be just as sexualized as his post-serum Captain America physique he had no idea. He decided not to Google it. (Sam had warned him. About Googling himself. Now he knew _why._ )  
  
There were some things, Steve decided, that he was just better off _just not knowing_ and _continuing to not know._    
  
And—  
  
“Stucky—!?” Steve cried aloud in distaste. “Of all the—“  
  
Oh. Yes. There was apparently a huge section of the internet and this Tumblr thing devoted to Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes getting down and dirty. Steve felt more than a little ill. He was a real person. And Bucky—well, it’s not like the world knew that James Buchanan Barnes was still alive. Hell, until a few years ago, they hadn’t known that Steve Rogers was still alive, either. But but BUT his brain tried to protest.  
  
No. No. It was fine, Steve took a deep breath. Really. Just fine. He wasn’t going to—what was the term?—kinkshame these people. But—really. Some privacy. That would be nice. Was it too much to ask? Apparently it was too much to ask.  
  
There was also, he found, a large section devoted to ‘Stony’, which—oh, God, no—  
  
Howard, maybe, he frowned. Steve hadn’t been interested but Howard hadn’t tried to be subtle. But Tony? Steve was fairly certain Tony was completely, totally, 100% straight. He’d met men—Bucky, even—who hid being queer behind a large curtain of girls so no one would come asking. But Tony? Tony Stark wasn’t hiding anything. (No. Really. _Anything_. Steve was mortified to find a few seconds later.)  
  
Steve let that image—and train of thought—die. _Think, Rogers, think. Focus. Remember the mission._ He was looking for Alice Mori. He wanted to know if anything he remembered—or dreamt—about that day had been real.

  
  
Steve Rogers isn’t a hero because he’s Captain America. Captain America is a hero because he’s Steve Rogers.

  
That was promising. Steve read further:  
  
_My Grandma Alice (then Alice Mori) grew up in Brooklyn not far from the Captain America Historic Site and told me how Steve Rogers saved her from some bullies who were throwing punches because she was Japanese-American. He totally took some hits for her, chased them off, then went to her house for tea! She says she lit his asthma cigarettes and gave him lavender and even—get this—blew a kiss to him from her bedroom window. Skinny Steve doesn’t get enough love!_  
  
_Times were different back then! Totally would’ve made out with the guy._  
_would’ve fucked him so hard_  
_guys she was like 13 steve rogers isn’t a pedophile ok fuck off_  
  
_#preserumsteve #totalbae #myhero #realsteverogers_  
  
It was real, then. Parts of it, that day, those memories, were real.  
  
“JARVIS?”  
  
“How may I be of assistance, Captain Rogers?”  
  
“I need to find someone.”  
  
“I believe Agents Romanov and Barton are already assisting you with that venture.”  
  
“No,” Steve swallowed. “Someone else.”

 

.

  
Steve woke up.  
  
He was—where was he? How—?  
  
Home. His bed. Nearly smothered under the covers. Really. It felt like every blanket ever made had been cocooned around him. He tried to pry them off, let out a stifled cry, sucked in his breath. His whole body ached. _What the hell?_  
  
Then he remembered. The fight. The alley. Alice Mori’s house. His knuckles were bloody and scratched and his nose and tongue still tasted like iron. There was a streak of scab running the length of his groin, and he shuddered remembering the press of the knife. But—Bucky? How?  
  
He groaned. Forced himself to sit up. Because that part had to be a dream. Because Bucky was gone. Bucky was in Wisconsin, in the army, getting Stevie’s letters—  
  
Something stirred in the shadows. Someone was there. “Hello?” Steve called, uncertain. Then— “Bucky?”


	8. Chapter 8

“Wakey-wakey.”  
  
“Rollins?”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Just don’t.”  
  
“Who _are_ you?”  
  
“I’m Jack. This is—ow!”  
  
“Listen, Selvig. We’re your worst nightmares.”  
  
“Ha! I’ve met the Destroyer. I my mind ripped out. I stood above New York when the Chitauri attacked. I’ve traveled to distant planets and other realities by Bifrost. I've had the misfortune of being acquainted with Loki of Asgard. So the two of you? I doubt it.”  
  
“Listen up, old man. You’ve got something we want, and you’re going to fucking help us get it.”  
  
“Yeah. You’re going to help us save Winter, or you’ll regret it.”  
  
“Rollins?”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Don't shoot the prisoner while I’m interrogating him. We need him alive.”  
  
“Oh. Right. Sorry, Brock-babe. You’re going to help us save Winter, or you’ll live to regret it.”  
  
“Saving Winter, huh? That anything like Finding Nemo?”  
  
“Fuck you, Selvig.”  
  
“Yeah, Selvig. Fuck you.”

 

.

  
The kitchen and communal dining room at Stark Tower were large enough you could avoid being bothered if you wanted. Hell, each floor and suite had its own small-yet-fully-stocked kitchen if you needed some space or privacy. Really, the only reason to eat in the communal dining room was if you wanted the company.  
  
…or needed to speak to someone.   
  
“Captain Rogers.” It was a meek, quiet squeak.  
  
Steve nodded. “Foster.”

  
 “Time travel?” She asked, flushing, taking the seat across from him. She was _tiny_ , Steve thought, smaller even than he had been before the serum.  “You were—asking?”  
  
“Oh. Time travel,” Steve shrugged, taking another bite of cereal, trying to act casual. “Do you think it’s possible?”  
  
Jane frowned, bit her small lips. “Not to be rude, Captain…but why do you ask?”  
  
Well, Steve supposed if The Man Out of Time who recently found out HYDRA had mutilated and tortured his best friend for seventy-some years had asked him for the secret to time travel, he’d probably be a bit suspicious, too.

"Fair enough." He put his spoon down. Wiped his mouth on the corner of a napkin emblazoned with the STARK Industries banner. “I don’t know. It might be nothing. But I had a dream. Maybe a memory. But if it’s a memory…time travel’s the only thing that makes sense.”  
  
“Tell me,” Jane whispered.  
  
“I saw the Winter Soldier, Steve began. "In 1942...”

 

.

  
“Bucky—?” Steve asked.  
  
The shadow moved. Steve’s hopes rose and fell, crushing him. Of course not. Bucky was gone. This was—the Soldier? The Soldier from yesterday morning.  
  
“Hello?” Steve asked nervously as the Soldier came closer. He still moved—God, he moved—like a stalking cat, graceful and deadly, like a dance. Steve wanted to sketch the lines of his walk, the stiff shoulders, the strut in the legs, swagger of hips.   
  
“почему.”  
  
“I—I don’t speak Russian,” Steve faltered. There was a man. A stranger.  A Russian. In his bedroom. Jesus Christ (sorry ma), there was a Bolshevik in his bedroom and Bucky would kill him. How had he gotten in? How did he know where Steve lived? Had he been the one who covered Steve up?  
  
…and _why?_  
  
But the Soldier had questions of his own. “Why this,” the Soldier grunted behind his mask, those goggles. “You gave. Me. This.” He held the quarter out in one large, leather-clad hand.  
  
“I did,” Steve swallowed, staring down at that sad little coin. “I gave that to you. Yesterday.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“I—I thought you could use it.”  
  
“Who am I?” The Soldier demanded, looming over him. “Who. Am I?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Steve answered, pulling the blankets up to his chest protectively. “I only met you the once—“  
  
The Soldier sighed. Stared at his gloved hands. At that quarter. Steve’s quarter. “You are Steven. Rogers Grant.”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
That hand clutched the quarter tighter. _He's shaking_ , Steve realized. “Steven Rogers Grant is the Mission.”  
  
“Okay—“  
  
“The Mission must be terminated.”  
  
“Who...what?” Steve hated being deaf in one ear, and the gas mask wasn’t helping. The words were guttural, muted, and Steve wanted to ask if the guy could just, maybe, you know, take it off, but that was rude, rude to ask someone to show their burn scars—  
  
“The mission. Must be completed,” the Soldier began to rock back and forth, struggling to speak. “Failure to comply. Is pain. The chair. The Asset must comply.”  
  
“Hey, hey, pal, you okay?” Steve said, holding out an arm to stop him, comfort him, fuck, he didn't know. But this guy was clearly crazy, alright? Buck would kill him if he ever found out Steve had let some nut in their apartment, Russian or no...  
  
The hand struck his throat swift as a snake. Choked him, pinned him, pressed him down against the bed and Steve squirmed and gasped, thrashed his legs, scrabbled against the back of that gloved hand, tried to tear at skin and found only metal. There were black spots on his vision as the Soldier crouched over him, staring him down through that mask, those hideous black-tinted goggles revealing no emotion no reason nothing. Tears leaked from Steve’s eyes and he tried, tried to call Bucky’s name to yell for help—  
  
 _You’re too fucking small, Stevie. You can’t stop him. Go for the eyes,_ he heard Bucky’s voice in the back of his mind. _Go for the eyes, punk._  
  
Steve scratched at that head, drew blood and raked up hair with his fingernails, dug against the leather and glass for purchase. He wasn’t strong, he was sickly, but he was dying and dying gave him strength. He ripped the goggles from the Soldier’s face, saw blazing blue eyes snarling down at him—  
  
Familiar eyes.  
… _Bucky’s_ eyes.


	9. Dream a Little Dream of Me

“I dunno, Brock-babe.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“I was kinda hoping that with saving Winter, well. I was kinda hoping we’d left HYDRA behind for good.”

“Rollins, you idiot. We’re not leaving HYDRA, we’re leaving the shitbags who took over HYDRA and turned it into fucking _Slytherin_.”

“Yeah, but—“

“Look, the real HYDRA? That was all about world peace, okay? Schmidt hated the fucking Nazis, hated governments perpetuating injustices. He knew war happened because of inequalities, and he was gonna change all that. With serum. With energy. For everyone. That’s HYDRA. That’s why we need Winter. You and me? We’re HYDRA through and through. And sometimes for the greater good you have to be willing to do some pretty nasty shit.”

“I don’t think we had to do all that shit, Brock-babe. To Winter. Not all of it.”

“Of course not, Jack. Of course not. And you and me, when we get Winter back, we’re never gonna hurt him like that again. He’s a weapon, the _best_ weapon, and we’re gonna treat him real good. Maintain him. None of that sadistic sex shit Pierce was into.”

“You really mean it, Brock-babe? No more rapes or whoring him out?”

“No more. Pierce is dead and can go fuck himself, for what it’s worth. Winter’s HYDRA’s greatest Asset. We’re gonna treat him that way. Okay?”

“Okay. But—“

“But what, you asshole?”

“…I still don’t like torturing people.”

“Fine. Fine. I’ll torture the goddamned prisoner. But you’re doing the fucking dishes.”

* * *

 

Darcy had called. Again. Jane sighed, surreptitiously checking her phone under the table. “But you could’ve been dreaming,” she argued.

“Yeah. Yeah, okay. It just—“ he trailed off, suddenly shy, eyes so far away.

“Captain Rogers?” Jane prompted after a few seconds of awkward silence.

“It just felt so real.”

“Well,” Jane said. “During REM sleep the frontal cortex is active with repeated theta waves reminiscent and even identical to those stimulated during active waking and memory formation. The visual cortex also undergoes intense stimulation to create unconscious images—even people who have subsequently developed blindness after birth/experiencing proper formation of the visual regions of the occipital cortices still claim to dream in full color.”

Across the table, Steve Rogers stared at her.

She flushed. Simplified it a bit. “Um, what I mean to say is that our brains create new, virtual realities in dream space. Of course it felt real.” It probably felt more real than anything that had happened since he woke up from the ice four years ago. “Besides,” she continued. “Even if it were possible—that’s a big theoretical—why would the Winter Soldier—sorry, your friend—go looking for you in 1942? You’re here now.”

“I don't know,” Steve said softly. “Maybe he remembered me. Maybe he remembered me how I _used_ to be.”

“Maybe he missed you,” Jane finished for him. That was a nice thought, wasn’t it? A good dream. That Bucky Barnes was alive, survived the war, got to go home to a pre-serum Steve Rogers, the Steve Rogers he had known before World War II tore his life to hell. And Steve Rogers smiled, then, really smiled, a smile that went all the way up to his eyes. They were old eyes, tired eyes, but with this smile some joy bubbled up to the surface, still sad, still old, but suddenly hopeful. She’d forgotten. They’d all forgotten. How young Steve Rogers really was. Had been. Would always be. Steve Rogers went under the serum at twenty-four. He hadn’t aged a day since. His brain, Jane knew, had never quite reached full frontal lobe development before being thrown into permanence. He would always be a bit of a child…and it showed. Showed in his reckless behavior, his idealistic naivety, his inability to comprehend his own mortality (if he was even still mortal). Let him love and live with reckless abandon with little thought of the future save his own hopes and dreams.

[Darcy, on the other hand, had no excuse.]

Okay, Jane thought. One problem dealt with. Now she could get to chewing Darcy out and getting Selvig committed again—really, the man was nuts. Brilliant, but nuts. (She loved him like a crazy uncle or senile grandparent but Selvig needed help. The professional and pharmaceutical kind.) Everything was fine. There was a hot Asgardian demi-god waiting for her upstairs, and whatever catastrophes the universe wanted to throw at her could just hurry up and fucking wait. No, today was a good day, today—

Today was the day 250 plus pounds of invincible super-soldier decided to up and fucking die in front of her.

She sipped the almond milk out of the bottom of her bowl, swished the soggy remnants of raisin bran between her teeth. Stood up to clear her place (seriously, Stark, the wait staff were just a little much), when Rogers gasped, face stricken, blanching, curling into himself like a child.

“Captain Rogers?” Jane asked, confused—amused, even. Was he playing some sort of trick? (Oh, God, had Darcy convinced him to—? She would absolutely murder her.)

“Captain Rogers?” she repeated, uncertain. “Steve?”

“I was wrong,” Cap managed to whisper. “He didn’t miss Stevie…he came to kill me.”

* * *

 

 Bucky’s eyes.

They were pale and blue, held no trace of recognition, no sign he knew it was Stevie. The body was wrong—the hands, that fucking arm—they were all wrong, he was too big, far too big, those shoulders, those hands were just too broad to be his Bucky’s but he was.

He had to be.

Steve knew those eyes. Would know them anywhere. The man in his bedroom—the man strangling him—was James Buchanan Barnes.

Steve stopped struggling, then. Couldn’t bring himself to fight, claw, scratch. Couldn’t imagine hurting Bucky—his Bucky. Not even in a dream.

Because _this_ was a dream. It _had_ to be. The real Stevie Rogers was probably choking, wheezing, having an asthma attack in his sleep, needed his cigarettes, his nebulizer, his mind screaming out for Buckybuckybucky but Bucky was gone, Bucky had been drafted, there was no Bucky, no Alice Mori, and Stevie would suffocate in his sleep. Because that was it. The only explanation. The only reason Bucky would ever take those big hands to Stevie to hurt him.

…it’s simple, really. Bucky wouldn’t.


End file.
